


forever be; but never having been

by ricinulei



Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: Ambition: The Uttermost East, Epistolary, Other, many semicolons were harmed in the making of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricinulei/pseuds/ricinulei
Summary: A changing wind. An end is near.
Relationships: The Alarming Scholar/Zee-Captain
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Unsent Letters 2020





	forever be; but never having been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silvereye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/gifts).



18th February, 1897

My dear friend,

Even now, I hesitate to put pen to paper. Four or five times in as many days, I have thought, I should write to him (her?), just to let the call of duty go unanswered. First it was a Drownie clinging to the hull that needed dislodging. Then, a zailor freshly recruited from the Khanate had happened to sit next to a refugee from Demeaux Island, and when the latter turned out to be more fungus than anybody had suspected, the former pulled a knife on her, and things escalated from then on. Yet in the past, as I hope you remember, such things never prevented me from finding the time to write to you.

I told myself you wouldn't be allowed to receive any letters from the person who provided to you the means for your current nervous breakdown. Even if this is true, though, it doesn't make any difference with regards to my duty. And I've never shirked my duty yet, not even when the ranks of Hell were upon us.

You may believe I hold no part of the blame for your current predicament; it may be so. I didn't miss how fast you snapped those grimy papers out of my hands. I've come to learn the warning signs of a human mind snapping like a rotted log, though. As we killed our lights while Mt Nomad creaks past us in the dark. As we looked upon the altar at Despair's Fastness. As devils sank their teeth in the still-living flesh of my squadron. If I had listened to the warning of my conscience this time, instead of brushing it aside so I could hear what you had to say about the hard-won intelligence I provided, you’d be far better for the wear. The human mind can knit itself back together; I don’t need to be one of your professors to know it. My experience has shown me as much. It is not a seamless process, not at all; I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat, swearing I can smell brimstone about me, and then the years have vanished and the war has never ended. But I do believe you can climb your way up the precipice; your unyielding curiosity can find fascination in even the direst circumstances.

In the chance that this letter isn't found and burned by your keepers before it even reaches your hands, let me say that I did write down the conclusions you muttered before they came to take you away, and I've put your findings to good use—or at least, to profitable use. There's a journey I long to make, a difficult one; the time is drawing near, maybe nearer than I’d expected it to.

Knowing you, I know I have your understanding; I don't expect your forgiveness. And by now, I have no need of payment. But I have a few odds and ends left that I'd hate to see go to waste. There's something I found in a crumbling lifeberg; I shoved it in a drawer and forgot all about it until last week, when I reviewed my possessions so that—well, that doesn't matter. The important part is that the object won’t move or bite again. A gunnery officer who used to work under me told me a story about her youth in the Presbyterate seventy years ago, late one night after drinks, and then, later and after more drinks, another story of her father's youth some eight-hundred years before that; they belong to the order of curiosities, not so much empirical fact, but they aren't without interest. Also, the one survivor from the Hunter's Keep tragedy conveyed to me the recipe for the mince pie the sisters used to offer at their table; I added a slight variation based upon my recollections of the dish. And some other such tidbits. If you have any interest in them, please visit the address I gave you when we first met. If it's lost, asking at the docks will be enough to lead you to my house. I must say, with as little preening as possible, that it's not easy to miss. (Your university paid for a couple of the fountains; feel free to pick which ones.) Upon introducing yourself, the butler should bring you a hat box with your name. (There shouldn't be anybody else but the butler left in the premises. If you see anybody else, I suggest you to run.)

Hoping you remember as fondly as I do the nights with too much coffee and not enough sleep,

R.Y.F., Zee-Captain

i cant write a lot. hence the small type. i appreciate your gift! i will accept it as an apology even if you dont consider it so. im doing much better & the toilet sink doesnt turn into maggots anymore. my prospects are good says the dr but im held under supervision anyway. i feel our dept of mental health still leaves a lot to be desired. or maybe its the laudanum speaking. anyway you shouldnt blame yourself. the dean always said i was a "d____d loony one step away from the madhouse". she resented me going over budget all the time. nonsense! who else but you ever brought us blue scintillack? a judgements egg??? enough said! also you correctly identified my planting method as a means for the flowers to draw calcium & grow healthier? no one else ever did that??? & it was so very clever & sweet of you????? i think the laudanums making me emotional SOMEHOW. i wouldnt mind seeing you again BUT itll have to wait because my window is too far from the ground to climb out of. im slightly afraid of heights & dont want to break a leg. also smart & sweet of you to remember i DONT like rubbery lumps. i almost ate your message. the food provided at the university is really boring which drove me to such extents. your the best listener i ever met which i never expected from a zee-captain trading in stories. i thought youd be a braggart whod never shut up. sorry im being blunt but thats the truth. i also didnt expect a zee-captain & former soldier to care so much about talking research all night instead of going off to drink at the docks & breaking a bottle on the table to brawl with other drunkards & waking up in a ditch amidst foul humours. sounds really presumptuous now ive written it down. please dont hold it against me. your a great person and really good at ███████████ thats not important the laudanum really got into my he

25th February, 1897

My dear friend,

I must admit I wasn't expecting any reply from you. If it wasn't for the need to deliver this note into your hands before the Cladery Heart sets sail again, I would still be attempting to arrange my thoughts into a coherent shape. This wasn’t helped by your d______y minuscule writing that couldn’t be made heads or tails of without a magnifying glass.

It’s not my intention to blame any of it on you, as I’m the one who must apologise again: I arrived just in time to deliver your courier rat from the maw of the ship's mog, only luck and quick reflexes preventing me from losing any more fingers in the process. The little fellow is currently under the protection of our tinkerer rat. Do you remember how I chanced to meet him? You were the only person who never laughed at me upon telling the tale of it. The source of the amusement was always lost on me.

I fear my letter might have brought upon you a measure of distress I would’ve spared you from. Something tells me I should not answer, but I rarely follow my best impulses when you’re concerned, as you already know. That you have yet to hold it against me, after everything I’ve done, is proof of the depth and quality of your friendship, which is more than I am entitled to. Presumptuous or not, the image you hold of me certainly owes more to your generous character than mine. I still used to spend late nights at Wolfstack Docks in the early times of our acquaintance; I met someone there, the man I had a child with; and I betrayed him shortly after that. If he’s still alive or not, I couldn’t say. Have you ever held a conversation with a Rubbery Man? I have. At zee, I took one of them as my lover; I don’t think I’m the only human who’s done so, but I daresay very few, if any, others have put the admission to writing; and I betrayed it, too, to its death. There’s a thing aboard my ship who used to be my first officer; it is now an empty, hollowed out husk of the former man, and I had a hand on making it so. I sailed forth through Adam’s Way knowing it would decimate my crew. If you happened to look into the engine currently powering my ship, you’d be longing for the return of the sink turned into maggots, to wipe the resulting image out of your mind. And there’s more looking toward the past, many, many more. I know you must believe I couldn’t be much worse than you are, with our respective ties to that place I shall not incriminate you with by mentioning in writing. Morality is something I’m far past having a right to comment upon. The facts are, quite simply, that knowing me paints a target on anybody’s back, something I don’t think you can be accused of.

You’re too kind to remark the obvious, so I’ll do it myself: even so, I haven’t bothered to sever our relationship in all the years of our acquaintance, or even whittle it down to a simple exchange of goods and echoes. That’s because I price our friendship too highly to deprive myself of it; and all the rest as well, though our friendship the most, as I haven’t had a real friend since the war. The truth is, I’m too old for barroom brawls. (But it is good to read I’m not too old for ███████████, even if it’s just the laudanum speaking.) I did a stint at an university long ago, but never finished it; I enlisted instead. What kept me night after night at your department was simply... you.

This isn’t, as you might be forgiven to believe, intended as an acceptance of anything. I never meant to pursue our relationship beyond my last letter; naïvely perhaps, I expected it would naturally fall by the wayside, hopefully hastened by your understandable resentment of your current situation. But, seeing how this isn’t the situation at all, I suppose you’re entitled to a short explanation by way of excuses. I’m zailing East, never to return.

My friend, I’ve told you much about the Gods of the Zee, though not nearly as much as I know. It would be... difficult to explain how I came by some of the intelligence I hold. I must appeal to your open-minded curiosity for the time being. It won’t take long; my tale is almost done. When did the end begin, I couldn’t say anymore; I’ve started to feel my whole life was a preparation for this next step. Ever since the war ended, I’ve tried and failed to find a place where I belong. I didn’t feel at home in London, but neither did I at zee. I built my own colony at a distant island touched by sunlight, but I never cared to stay there longer than necessary, even though many a zailor of mine deserted for the sake of its white beaches. I helped the anarchists as little more than a lark and turned against them as revenge for the fate of a café I used to have dealings with; I did the same to the Pentecost Apes for no other reason than tiring of their chattering. And as you know, my family life can be considered a not-so-successful experiment.

Or perhaps it all started during the war. You know very well I had soldiers under my command; I saw them die; I almost died myself. It was a desperate time, and in desperate times humans turn to sources they would’ve scoffed at before. Then I performed the rites of Salt for the first time; I brushed against the errant, the shifting, the always beyond words, and I believe a part of me never looked away. Or it could be from the moment I enlisted that I started searching for an unknown destination, or, if you put any stock on things like fate, ever since my birth. That doesn’t matter now. I’ve found what I was looking for; it is within my reach. But the prince, my friend, is commensurate with the reward.

You value curiosity better than anybody else I’ve met; yours is wide and far-reaching, something I’ve always found delightful. But I don’t think even you can understand how bright the incandescent focus of obsession can burn. One who still has attachments cannot wander beyond. The child I used to have is an orphan now, in every way that matters. If you ever find yourself in want for company to curse my name with, I suggest you find hers; she has the best reason of anybody’s, not for my own sake, but for that of the will I tossed into the fireplace. I burned every bridge; I cast the dice; I turned to at Eurydice and watched without a care as she sank forever into Hades. And then... I received your note. And a part of myself I didn’t know still remained wanted to stay.

So I must thank you, even though there are no adequate thanks to give. I will cast you away as I did the others; believe, if you can, that it is for the best.

Whatever I shall be

hopefully this will reach you! i only wanted to say this is the most exciting thing ive ever heard of!!!! godspeed & good luck!!!!!!!!!!!

[A scribbling on the back of the last note: RECEIVED.]

**Author's Note:**

> What errant labyrinth, what whiteness  
> blind of radiance will be my fate,  
> when the end of this adventure delivers  
> to me the curious experience of death?  
> I want to drink its crystalline Oblivion,  
> forever be; but never having been.
> 
> From "Los enigmas" by Jorge Luis Borges; this particular translation and its questionable meter should be blamed on me.


End file.
